Current drone management systems of single or fleet of drones via conventional radio control protocols have multiple disadvantages. For example, there are currently no plans for general air traffic control and no way to expand existing air traffic control systems to high traffic volumes and potential traffic congestion required for many drone applications such as package pickup and delivery. State-of-the-art drones have on-board collision avoidance systems; but these systems are not designed to function in heavily congested airspace. As another example, there is currently no ubiquitous infrastructure for flight plan management for drones in multiple heterogeneous applications. Current work in this area addresses general air traffic control using human controllers with eventual automation, an approach that suffers from a scalability issue. Further, there are presently no widespread infrastructures for drone service, no services like weather forecasts suited to drone requirements, and no fail safe designs for drones to enable safe usage over populated areas.